SEC hits the expansion pause button -- for now

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Turns out Mike Slive can't literally get to 16 SEC members in 15 minutes. He is a recovering attorney, after all.

The SEC hit the pause button. For now. It's hard to believe the Texas A&M-SEC courtship -- and whatever offspring it produces -- is over.

Here we go again with "As the Conferences Turn." ESPN should air this soap opera on The Longhorn Network, seeing as ESPN significantly contributed to this latest episode. Something's got to fill up those hours without high school football.

This was the carefully-crafted statement by Florida President Bernie Machen on Sunday:

Jon Solomon is a columnist for The Birmingham News. Join him for live web chats on college sports on Wednesdays at 2 p.m.

"The SEC Presidents and Chancellors met today and reaffirmed our satisfaction with the present 12 institutional alignment. We recognize, however, that future conditions may make it advantageous to expand the number of institutions in the league. We discussed criteria and process associated with expansion. No action was taken with respect to any institution including Texas A&M."

These 56 words could be interpreted 56 different ways. My take: Texas A&M needs to get properly divorced from the Big 12 -- and handle whatever Texas politicians throw their way at a hearing Tuesday -- and then the SEC will formally talk marriage. Not to mention, the SEC needs to make sure everyone is on board for whichever additional members might follow.

Texas A&M President R. Bowden Loftin quickly put out his own statement, saying there had been misinformation about these discussions and timelines. "These are extremely complex issues, and it's imperative that we proceed methodically and in the best interests of Texas A&M," Loftin said.

No one wants to pay alimony. Much has been learned since the ACC's haphazard raid of the Big East in 2003 got the ACC sued, resulting in a settlement that The Hartford Courant valued at $5 million. Imagine what Big 12 members could get with the SEC and ESPN involved if they could prove contracts were breached.

ESPN's control of college sports has reached this dizzying equation: ESPN started a network with Texas that directly or indirectly attempted to rewrite NCAA recruiting rules, which could lead to Texas A&M's departure, which could damage the Big 12's deals with Fox and ESPN, which could improve the SEC's deal with ESPN. That's power or chutzpah, or perhaps both.

Everyone is looking out for No. 1: Texas A&M, Texas, the SEC, the Big 12, ESPN. No one wants to be left without the best possible seat when the realignment music stops.

Adding to the irony is this soap opera returned in a week when the NCAA and university presidents talked tough about grabbing control of their runaway train that's controlled by TV money.

"There is a contradiction in there, isn't there?" former NCAA President Cedric Dempsey said, chuckling.

Dempsey's like me. He believes talk of giving conferences the choice to provide full cost-of-attendance scholarships and multi-year scholarships to athletes is a preview of the eventual move to four super conferences.

"There's no doubt we're looking in the next three, four or five years -- at most -- of seeing conferences from 14 to 18 members," said Dempsey, the NCAA president from 1993 to 2002. "The handwriting is on the wall."

Texas Athletics Director DeLoss Dodds has even publicly discussed what once seemed like a radical future. There's a YouTube video now making the rounds of Dodds saying Texas has had "a lot of conversations" with Notre Dame about building "something that's national, maybe more than 20 teams" and creating conferences among those peers.

Dempsey suspects either another NCAA division with some different rules will be created for those with money, or -- less likely -- some of those schools might pull out of the NCAA.

When the NCAA landed a $6 billion deal with CBS for the men's basketball tournament in 1999, Dempsey said he unsuccessfully tried to take $25 million out upfront to help fund full scholarships. The problem: He had no power.

"Most of the commissioners of the BCS would not approve it. They wanted the money," Dempsey said. "It's interesting that some of the same commissioners are pushing the other way now for full cost of attendance."

Funny thing about super conferences: Somebody has to lose. Several somebodies, actually. God help those somebodies whose fans aren't accustomed to losing.

"Sooner or later, you'll have 33 schools not winning and then you're down to a 33-team conference and you end up with no one to play," Dempsey said. "There's always the danger of that."

But that's for another day, sort of like saving Social Security. For now, there are TV eyeballs to add, shadows to escape, money to be made.